More information can be found here: http://blog.openhelix.eu/?p=4602 . This week's tip in 2nd part in a 5 part series of tips following one variation in an individual's genome across several databases and resources to find out what information we gather about the clinical association of that variation. This wee we look at dbSNP, VarView and OMIM.

A quick introduction to WAVe (Web Analysis of the Variome), a great tool that pulls in a wealth of information about human gene variation. For a more high-resolution version of this tip and more information about the resource, visit the OpenHelix blog.

This Journal and the Public Library of Science (PLoS) at large are standard bearers of the full potential offered through open access publication, but what of you, the reader? For most of you, open access may imply free access to read the journals, but nothing more. There is a far greater potential, but, up to now, little to point to that highlights its tangible benefits. We would argue that, as yet, the full promise of open access has not been realized. There are few persistent applications...

This video shows how to install and use the BioBar toolbar on Firefox. This is a nifty addition to the browser that makes accessing many of the usual online databases and tools very easy. It also allows you to easily run a search at these databases without having to navigate to the website first. BioBar can be found at biobar.mozdev.org and was written by Jawahar Swaminathan at the EBI.